'Barbaric Violence': MS-13 Gang Leader Pleads Guilty To 7 Murders: DOJ

BRENTWOOD, NY — A high-ranking leader of the gang known as MS-13 pleaded guilty to seven murders and other charges in federal court in Central Islip, federal officials announced Tuesday.

Jairo "Funny"Saenz, 28, a high-ranking member of the Brentwood/Central Islip chapter of the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside (Sailors) clique of La Mara Salvatrucha, also known as the MS-13, a transnational criminal organization, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in connection with seven murders, federal officials said.

The murders include the 2016 killings of Michael Johnson, Oscar Acosta, Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15 — the girls were friends and attended Brentwood High School — Javier Castillo, Dewann Stacks, and the 2017 murder of Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, officials said.

Saenz also pleaded guilty to his participation in three attempted murders, arson, narcotics trafficking, firearms offenses, and a conspiracy to kill Marcus Bohannon, who was murdered on Sept. 5, 2016 by other members of the MS-13, officials said.

Officials said that when he is sentenced, Jairo Saenz faces up to 60 years in prison and a minimum sentence of 40 years in prison under the terms of his plea agreement.

"Today, Jairo Saenz pleaded guilty to seven murders that can only be described as barbaric, and multiple acts of senseless gang violence that had turned parts of Long Island into a war zone, with MS-13 gang members wielding guns, machetes, bats and fire that threatened the safety of our communities," stated Acting U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny. "I commend my office’s prosecutors and the Long Island Gang Task Force who are committed to holding MS-13 gang members accountable for the crimes they have committed and harm they have caused. It is my sincere hope that today’s guilty plea brings some measure of solace and closure to the families of the defendant’s victims who continue to mourn the deaths of their loved ones."

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, while in MS-13, Saenz was second in command to his brother, Alexi Saenz, who pleaded guilty to the same crimes in July 2024.

On January 28, 2016, Saenz and other MS-13 members were at the Jocorena Deli in Brentwood, where they saw 29-year-old Johnson and claimed to recognize him as a member of the rival Bloods street gang, officials said. Johnson was reportedly then marked as their “food,” meaning they intended to kill him, officials said.

According to information established at trial, Saenz got approval from the New York leader of the Sailors clique to murder Johnson and contacted several other MS-13 members, informed them of the plan and told them to bring weapons, including a machete and a baseball bat, to a wooded area in Brentwood, officials said. Saenz then lured Johnson to the secluded meeting location under the guise of smoking marijuana, officials said.

The MS-13 members and associates proceeded to beat Johnson with the baseball bat, stab him with a knife and took turns hacking him with the machete and fled when they heard police sirens, officials said.

Johnson was reported missing by family members and less than a week later, Suffolk County police responded to a 911 call reporting a body found in the woods by a passerby and recovered Johnson’s body on February 2, officials said. An autopsy determined Johnson’s cause of death to be sharp and blunt force injuries, Peace's office said

Then in early 2016, the Saenz brothers and fellow Sailors approved the murder of 19-year-old Acosta because they thought he was associating with the rival 18th Street gang after previously aligning himself with the MS-13, according to officials. The Sailors' leader assigned members to take the lead in planning and carrying out the murder, officials said.

On April 29, MS-13 members met Acosta in a wooded area near an elementary school in Brentwood where he'd also been lured under the guise of smoking marijuana, officials said. They brutally beat Acosta with tree limbs and knocked him unconscious, bound his hands and feet, wrapped clothing around his mouth and summoned other MS-13 members, including Saenz, officials said.

They then loaded Acosta into the trunk of Alexi Saenz’s car and drove to a secluded area in Brentwood near the abandoned Pilgrim State Psychiatric Hospital, officials said. Acosta was removed from the trunk while still alive and carried him into the woods where they took turns hacking him to death with a machete, officials said. Acosta was then buried in a shallow grave, officials said.

Five months later, Acosta’s body was discovered by law enforcement on September 16 during a search for another MS-13 victim. His cause of death was homicidal violence, including sharp and blunt force injuries to his head and torso, officials said.

Then on July 18, 2016, during a Sailors meeting at the Saenz' brothers' Central Islip home, Saenz instructed the group to hunt for rival gang members who had been disrespectful to the gang in order to attack and kill them, officials said.

That evening, other MS-13 members who were driving around Brentwood armed with firearms and a machete, spotted a group of men on Apple Street. Thinking they were members of a rival gang, three MS-13 members got out of the car and attacked the group, firing rounds from two different guns and then using a machete to hack at one of the men who had fallen to the ground, officials said. After the attack, the group drove back to Alexi Saenz’s house, where they hid the weapons, officials said.

During the attack, two individuals, known as John Doe 1 and 2, were injured. John Doe #1 was struck with a bullet but survived. John Doe #2 was attacked with a machete and was permanently disfigured, officials said.

On August 10, Alexi Saenz and another MS-13 member drove through the neighborhood around Lukens Avenue in Brentwood and saw several men who they believed were members of the Goon Squad and rallied other Sailors to kill them, officials said.

The MS-13 members got into two vehicles and drove toward the house where the suspected Goon Squad members had been spotted. The Saenz’s car kept watch for the police, while two other MS-13 members with guns approached the group of suspected rivals and fired multiple shots in their direction, officials said.

No one was hit, although a stray bullet entered a neighbor’s house and struck the headboard of a bed in which the neighbor was sleeping, officials said.

Then on Sept. 4, 2016, the Saenz brothers held a Sailors meeting at their home in Central Islip and along with other MS-13 members, went out hunting for rival gang members to kill, officials said.

They got into several cars and drove around Central Islip and Brentwood until the Saenz' group spotted 27-year-old Bohannon walking along Lowell Avenue in Central Islip in the early morning hours of Sept. 5, officials said. Again, they suspected that Bohannon was a member of the Bloods gang and two MS-13 members with guns approached him and started shooting, officials said. Bohannon was struck nine times, including in his head, neck, and chest, and eventually died from the injuries, officials said.

During the summer of 2016, Sailors clique members of the MS-13 were also regularly having altercations with other gang members in a neighborhood on Freeman Avenue in Brentwood, officials said.

On Sept. 12, 2016, MS-13 members set fire to a car parked in the driveway of one of the houses in the rival gang neighborhood, federal officials said. Saenz directed other gang members to buy gasoline and start the fire while he drove around watching for police presence, officials said. Meanwhile, the other MS-13 gang members drove to the house and lit the car on fire, which exploded and set a nearby car on fire, officials said.

Just the next day, on Sept. 13, Sailors brutally murdered 15-year-old Nisa Mickens and 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas, both students at Brentwood High School, officials said. According to evidence established at trial, prior to her murder, Cuevas was involved in a series of disputes with MS-13 members, officials said. About a week before Mickens and Cuevas were killed, the disputes escalated when Cuevas and several friends were involved in an altercation with MS-13 members at school, which led to the MS-13 members vowing to seek revenge against Cuevas, officials said.

That evening, the Saenz brothers and other Sailors were driving in separate cars around Brentwood searching for rival gang members to attack and kill, officials said. One group saw Cuevas and Mickens walking down residential Stahley Street, called the Saenz brothers and got permission to kill the girls, officials said. They proceeded to attack them with baseball bats and a machete, hitting them repeatedly while Saenz watched for police, officials said.

After killing the teenage girls, the gang members went to Saenz’s Central Islip home where they changed clothes and hid the weapons, officials said.

Mickens' body was found that evening on Stahley Street, not far from Cuevas’ home, while Cuevas' body was discovered the next day behind a house adjacent to where Mickens’s body was found, officials said. Both girls' bodies had sustained significant blunt force trauma to their heads and bodies, while Cuevas also sustained lacerations, officials said.

In October 2016, MS-13 members targeted 15-year-old Castillo because he was believed to be a member of the 18th Street gang, one of MS-13’s principal rivals, officials said. On Oct. 10, Jairo Saenz and several other Sailors convinced Castillo, who lived in Central Islip, to drive with them around 30 miles away to Freeport to smoke marijuana, officials said.

Once there, they met the Saenz brothers and other Sailors who lured Castillo to an isolated marsh area in Cow Meadow Park, where they attacked him and hacked him to death with a machete, officials said. They dug a hole and buried Castillo’s body, which was found a year later in October 2017, officials said. Castillo suffered multiple sharp force injuries to his head, neck, torso, and extremities, officials said.

On the evening of Oct. 13, 2016, the Saenz brothers and other Sailors again drove around Central Islip and Brentwood in search of rival gang members to attack and kill when they saw 34-year-old Stacks and Saenz authorized his murder, officials said.

While Saenz again watched for police, other MS-13 members armed with machetes and a baseball bat attacked Stacks, beating and hacking him to death on American Boulevard, a residential street in Brentwood, officials said.

Stacks sustained severe sharp and blunt force trauma to his face and head, leaving his body nearly unrecognizable, officials said.

On the morning of Jan. 30, 2017, Alexi Saenz and other Sailors targeted 29-year-old Alvarado-Bonilla inside El Campesino Deli in Central Islip, officials said. Alvarado-Bonilla was wearing a football jersey bearing the number “18,” which led the MS-13 to conclude that he was a member of a rival gang, and decided to kill him, officials said.

Jairo Saenz and several other MS-13 members obtained a mask and another vehicle that would be used to commit the murder. Alexi Saenz provided the clique’s 9-millimeter handgun for use in the murder, federal officials said.

At around 10:30 a.m., a masked MS-13 member entered the deli and shot Alvarado-Bonilla from behind multiple times, killing him with the 9-millimeter handgun provided by Alexi Saenz, officials said. A bullet went through Alvarado-Bonilla’s head and hit a female employee of the deli in the chest while she was standing in front of him, officials said. The woman survived.

From about April 2016 through March 2017, the Saenz brothers sold wholesale quantities of cocaine and marijuana through other Sailors and associates in street-level sales in Brentwood and its surrounding areas to finance the gang, officials said.

They reportedly used the profits to purchase guns, support MS-13 leaders in El Salvador and buy additional narcotics for further distribution.

Saenz’s guilty plea follows a series of federal prosecutions by Peace’s Office for the Eastern District of New York targeting members of MS-13.

The MS-13’s leadership is based in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, but the gang has thousands of members across the United States. With numerous branches, or “cliques,” the MS-13 is the most violent criminal organization on Long Island, according to federal officials.

The brutality brought then-President Donald Trump to Long Island with a promise to crack down on gangs.

Trump also vowed to crack down on deadly MS-13 during his first State of the Union address as President at the U.S. Capitol, bringing the pain of the devastation close to home when he introduced the parents of the two Brentwood teen girls murdered in a horrific act of MS-13 gang violence.

"For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They've allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives," Trump said.

He introduced "two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens," whose girls, Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens, were close friends on Long Island, Trump said.

"But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisa's 16th Birthday — such a happy time it should have been — neither of them came home," he said. "These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage MS-13 gang have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders."

According to Trump, many of the gang members "took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as illegal, unaccompanied alien minors, and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school."

Evelyn Rodriguez later died in 2018 after being run over while setting up a memorial for her daughter Kayla.